This absorbing documentary follows the brilliant Dutch violinist as she attempts to record an album with 12 of the most exquisite Stradivarius violins in existence
There’s such intelligence and connoisseurship in this documentary about the Dutch violin virtuoso Janine Jansen and her recent mission to record an album with 12 of the most exquisite Stradivarius violins in existence – that is, violins made by the great Italian craftsman Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737), of which perhaps around 500 are now extant. The 12 that Jansen records with are a veritable European Super League of Strads, and the film absorbingly tells us about the great musicians who used to own them.
It’s impossible not to be overwhelmed by Jansen’s mastery of her instrument, and the fineness and the delicacy of her response to each Stradivarius; from each she conjures vivid stabs and blocks and twines of sound. (I notice that some of the English musicians she speaks to have that distinctive, eccentric high-classical mannerism of calling these precious violins “fiddles”.) Jansen is a rather remarkable personality; brilliant but entirely without what the English used to call “side”: she is completely candid, open and unpretentious, no false modesty, no false anything.